GameDev.net 2013! What do you want to see from the site?

Hey everyone! 2013 is upon us an it's a great time to reflect over the past year and look at ways to improve our community in the upcoming year. So let's hear it.. what do you want to see from the site this year? We'll continue to work hard to make the site better for the game development community.

Beginner in Game Development? Read here.Super Mario Bros clone tutorial written in XNA 4.0 [MonoGame, ANX, and MonoXNA] by Scott Haley
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Spoiler

How on earth can you go around telling lies, be shown that they are lies, then continue to ignore the evidence to the contrary. I'm not qualified to deal with this, sorry. - HodgmanNever crash to desktop. That's the equivalent of a Starbucks rep punching you in the face when you try to order a coffee with soymilk when they run out of soymilk. - KoobazaurFor programmers, R & D means "Research & Duplicate".Just remember... XML is like violence. If it doesn't work, you just aren't using enough of it... - MoeEvery time I go into my account settings I feel like I've never used the internet before. - booleanPerson X: Do you want to live forever?
Person Y: No, but I want to live a long life.
Person X: Only cowards live that long.
Person Y: And yet, we travel to seek the counsel of these "cowards".

I'd just like to take a moment to thank our entire community for all your support and participation over the last year -- and particularly for your patience with the bugs from our latest software update -- as it really is the community that makes this site such a great resource. Thanks to everyone who has participated in the site in any way, and please let us know what you'd like to see out of the site going forwards!

my vote is for 2, and 3. while i wouldn't mind a black theme, i've grown used to the white look of GD.

i don't know about how #5 would exactly work, but what i'd love to see is more participation in the YA/IOTD and even with journals. but mostly in the YA forum, as it stands now, it's pretty much a graveyard imo.

perhaps a diffrent system could be created for showcasing your creation, rather than as a forum post in a board that seems to get little traffic.

Your Announcements is a bit of a tricky forum, largely thanks to it having quite a bit of overlap with a number of other parts of the site... do you share your latest project in Your Announcements, do you post in Image of The Day, or do you post a journal entry? Perhaps you do all 3... It's also a little unfocussed, with announcements of finished projects, announcements of works-in-progress, and people advertising products or services all in one place.

Beginner in Game Development? Read here.Super Mario Bros clone tutorial written in XNA 4.0 [MonoGame, ANX, and MonoXNA] by Scott Haley
If you have found any of the posts helpful, please show your appreciation by clicking the up arrow on those posts

Spoiler

How on earth can you go around telling lies, be shown that they are lies, then continue to ignore the evidence to the contrary. I'm not qualified to deal with this, sorry. - HodgmanNever crash to desktop. That's the equivalent of a Starbucks rep punching you in the face when you try to order a coffee with soymilk when they run out of soymilk. - KoobazaurFor programmers, R & D means "Research & Duplicate".Just remember... XML is like violence. If it doesn't work, you just aren't using enough of it... - MoeEvery time I go into my account settings I feel like I've never used the internet before. - booleanPerson X: Do you want to live forever?
Person Y: No, but I want to live a long life.
Person X: Only cowards live that long.
Person Y: And yet, we travel to seek the counsel of these "cowards".

In the future (8-10 months from now), I'd like to write several articles or tutorials on different programming subjects. I'd like to post them on my own website.

I'd also like to repost them on GameDev.net without giving up my rights to them, and this is how I'd like it to happen:

1) I want to create them, update them, edit them, without having to bother moderators or staff, in the same way I create, update, and edit my GameDev.net journal.

2) I want them to appear on my user profile, right with 'Posts' and 'Journal' and etc... (see pic), as well in the "Find content" page.

Everyone's articles would be sorted by highest ranking in an "Articles" hub, and anything that gets negative ranking of, say, -5, just disappears from the main "Articles" hub (while still being accessible through an individual user's 'Content' page).

I know there already is an article submission system (which I've never used yet), but I want it to be easy enough that I can post content without having to go through a hassle to do so. Without having to even really think about it.

Many people have article or tutorial-like content in their journals already. This is great! I want to separate the time-irrelevant content (Articles, tutorials, code snippets) from the content that is time-sensitive (updates on projects, or talking about life).

To encourage this, journal posts should have a "Post as article" button that users can press that (through a tag or something) post the article both as a "Article" and a journal entry at the same time.

[Edit:] Oh, I'd also like to thank the staff for how smoothly the most recent site update went. There was alot of bugs, which weren't your fault, but you responded to them amazingly quickly and smoothly.

One of my major focuses in the next year is going to be improving and growing the classifieds section. I'd really like to get the interface cleaned up, streamlined, and make it as easy as possible to use -- both when posting an ad, and when trying to find projects that are suitable for any given user. I think we've taken a step in the right direction with classifieds (as opposed to the old forum), but I want to continue making progress and improving the system rather than simply letting it stagnate as-is.

As one of the site's sources of income, I'd also really love if classifieds could become popular enough to reduce our reliance on advertising. Unfortunately it takes quite a bit of money to keep the site running, making advertising a bit of a necessary evil, but if we can improve classifieds so that we're providing a really valuable service we might be able to support the site more through that service and remove some of the ads.

Some of the features I'm looking at adding include detailed documentation and instructions -- not just on using the system itself, but also on effective recruiting practices and how successful teams usually operate -- contextually relevant help, and much better exposure for advertisers by more prominently (but unobtrusively) featuring relevant ads elsewhere on the site and perhaps in user-configurable summary emails.

One of the other areas where we're hoping to make huge improvements is in article publishing, and I think Servant of the Lord will be happy with some of the planned changes. We're looking at making the submission process a lot easier, opening up articles to community review, really trying to recognise those who take the time to contribute, and at trying to make it much easier to find relevant, high-quality articles through features such as improved tagging, easy rating of content and possibly subscriptions to topic-based digests. Once we're happy that we have a solid and easy-to-use platform we'll also be making a big push to get new content published on a regular basis.

Drew and Mike may have more details or thoughts to share on the publishing side of things.

also, the home page's new system of showing new topics(or interesting topics), is a great addition, i used to jump straight to the forums by just entering the forums url, but now i'm trying to actively use the home page to find new topics that i might be able to help/answer, however one addition i'd like to see their is a "my content" tab, while i know their is a my content tab under my name, the streamlined home page tab system would really make that a very nice feature to switch over and see what's been happening in threads i've participated in without having to load a new page.

As I've mentioned a few times, I think the site should change to actually cater to people working on games. The state of the site is just a programming forum and intelligence insulting fake product reviews by everyone's favorite autodesk stooge.

Everyone just posts about obscure C++ features (how many more C# vs C++ threads do we need?), or we get topics in the lounge where angry grouches who never leave their dark rooms complain about things normal people do. And it's mostly people who produce nothing and their can't do attitudes telling other people they can't get anything done either.

That attitude is complete bullshit. Sites like TIGSource and ScreenshotSaturday are overflowing with great content made from small, often one-man, teams. The difference is they have talent, skill, and can-do attitudes. The front page of TIG is full of screenshots showcasing the talent and creativity of the community. Their forum is full of dev logs where people post constant updates and have actual design discussions. The difference is that these other sites realize that creating a game is more a creative endeavor and less a technical one.

So the site could do a lot more to cater to a actual game making crowd. The forums could be reorganized to focus on creativity and actually getting games done, instead of shoving it into a corner ('The creative side'). That in itself is only a testament that community itself just doesn't 'get it'.

I've been visiting over ten years now, and I have seen the site change many times, but never for the better. I've seen lots and lots of buggy re-skins over what is effectively, in spirit a 1996-era C++ forum. It's always just lateral moves, and the site never moves forward. It's just a new coat of paint for the same dated site, with the same functionality.

What happened to the articles? And the front page? Although I prefer no front page to the old spam, ad filled age that was just links to other people's content. It's all been replaced with just a forum that has shoehorned social media widgets and links to other people's businesses. Do articles on making games conflict with sending traffic to your affiliated partners?

We could have a great community here that focuses on both the technical and creative. Community members can focus on promoting their skills and creative backgrounds, and possibly use the site to facilitate linking up with like minded people to work on projects. There should be be a focus on member's work.

There is a lot of sites that offer a good example of what a better GDNet could be in the coming years. TiGSource, ScreenshotSaturday, AltDevBlogADay, and DeviantArt. DeviantArt is a great showcase of user's creative works, and has a forum full of good creative discussion. They successfully offer a subscription service that many pay for too! Taking all the things that these sites are doing right could make for a great ideal GD community site.

You could have a great social network + forum here focusing on enabling people to connect and get stuff done. Wouldn't it be great to able to see who locally is interested in game development, what their skills and interests are, and be able to form a team? Then we could have a wiki for the technical stuff. Keep it current with info on how to get started, platform details. Language specifics, and what tools are available, etc...

I would like to see the classic black theme as well! I would also like to see something which show cases upcoming indie games from people who use the site here. I know there is an image of the day, but maybe a project of the week?

EDIT: I'm not referring to a journal entry, as I know this exists already.

Your Announcements is a bit of a tricky forum, largely thanks to it having quite a bit of overlap with a number of other parts of the site... do you share your latest project in Your Announcements, do you post in Image of The Day, or do you post a journal entry? Perhaps you do all 3... It's also a little unfocussed, with announcements of finished projects, announcements of works-in-progress, and people advertising products or services all in one place.

It's definitely something I'd like to try improving however!

I agree. It definitely feels like the Announcements forum is kind of redundant, and it's also being presented as a forum whereas it's not really one (let's face it - how many actual discussions happen there? it's mostly zero-reply threads of people posting their stuff). It would be nice to have a more consistent way for the community to display their concepts and projects, finished or not.

The slowsort algorithm is a perfect illustration of the multiply and surrender paradigm, which is perhaps the single most important paradigm in the development of reluctant algorithms. The basic multiply and surrender strategy consists in replacing the problem at hand by two or more subproblems, each slightly simpler than the original, and continue multiplying subproblems and subsubproblems recursively in this fashion as long as possible. At some point the subproblems will all become so simple that their solution can no longer be postponed, and we will have to surrender. Experience shows that, in most cases, by the time this point is reached the total work will be substantially higher than what could have been wasted by a more direct approach.

As I've mentioned a few times, I think the site should change to actually cater to people working on games. The state of the site is just a programming forum and intelligence insulting fake product reviews by everyone's favorite autodesk stooge.

That attitude is complete bullshit. Sites like TIGSource and ScreenshotSaturday are overflowing with great content made from small, often one-man, teams. The difference is they have talent, skill, and can-do attitudes. The front page of TIG is full of screenshots showcasing the talent and creativity of the community. Their forum is full of dev logs where people post constant updates and have actual design discussions. The difference is that these other sites realize that creating a game is more a creative endeavor and less a technical one.

So the site could do a lot more to cater to a actual game making crowd. The forums could be reorganized to focus on creativity and actually getting games done, instead of shoving it into a corner ('The creative side'). That in itself is only a testament that community itself just doesn't 'get it'.

I've been visiting over ten years now, and I have seen the site change many times, but never for the better. I've seen lots and lots of buggy re-skins over what is effectively, in spirit a 1996-era C++ forum. It's always just lateral moves, and the site never moves forward. It's just a new coat of paint for the same dated site, with the same functionality.

What happened to the articles? And the front page? Although I prefer no front page to the old spam, ad filled age that was just links to other people's content. It's all been replaced with just a forum that has shoehorned social media widgets and links to other people's businesses. Do articles on making games conflict with sending traffic to your affiliated partners?

We could have a great community here that focuses on both the technical and creative. Community members can focus on promoting their skills and creative backgrounds, and possibly use the site to facilitate linking up with like minded people to work on projects. There should be be a focus on member's work.

There is a lot of sites that offer a good example of what a better GDNet could be in the coming years. TiGSource, ScreenshotSaturday, AltDevBlogADay, and DeviantArt. DeviantArt is a great showcase of user's creative works, and has a forum full of good creative discussion. They successfully offer a subscription service that many pay for too! Taking all the things that these sites are doing right could make for a great ideal GD community site.

You could have a great social network + forum here focusing on enabling people to connect and get stuff done. Wouldn't it be great to able to see who locally is interested in game development, what their skills and interests are, and be able to form a team? Then we could have a wiki for the technical stuff. Keep it current with info on how to get started, platform details. Language specifics, and what tools are available, etc...

edit: forum keeps eating my posts.

Well the programmer-centric part of Gamedev.net has been a long time byproduct of having the site created and run by programmers. I've always wanted to move the site into a significantly more creative/artistic side. I created the publisher guidelines page and I had a number of people talking about the stupid characters that were on the page. It always perplexed me why in a medium such as game development we can't see more game elements overflowing onto our pages.

There are a lot of great suggestions here and one of the common themes to these sites is just make it easy to share what you are doing. ScreenshotSaturday is interesting in that it requires a very low amount of effort to post your screenshot. Just all around great simplicity and execution. Maybe we need to figure out how we can absolutely lower the barrier to share all the cool stuff people are working on.

The idea that we are just a forum now has come from both our 2012 redesign and our inability to make significant progress with our article process. We've definitely struggled with ways to present information to people because there is just so much output from the community but it isn't necessarily at a consistent rate.

We need to flesh out ideas like yours and the other ones here. I think the idea that the staff can do this on our own leads to limiting results.. having you guys involved would certainly help out but we need ideas on how we can all work together as a team on this as well.

It would be good to open up an HTML5/JavaScript/WebGL forum for browser based games. Many people are in the learning stage right now with HTML5, so it would be good to start a section for it at some point in the (near) future. I'm sure a lot of people come to this site looking for HTML5 and are forced to go elsewhere.

I joined this website right before the change and I think this is a fantastic website and community and I'd love to see improvements over time. I've experienced issues with renewing adverts in the classified section. Essentially, once my ad expires, it asks me to renew. If I click renew it starts with "$0.00" and whether I leave it or enter a different number, it says it's an invalid format or "Oops, something went wrong" and then my adert goes into a "Time Left" but doesn't actually show up in the classified section (Since I never technically paid for it). I'm not able to renew it again nor am I able to view the ad so I can copy and paste into a new one which is a bummer. This is more of a technical issue for the website but I think it's still something worth mentioning and I'd be happy to give information to help resolve that issue.

A tutorial for C++ game programming that doesn't use VC++ 6.0. I mean, come on, have you guys made a book on C++ in the last 5 years? I have a ton of books on C++ from you, but all are old. So would it hurt to have something new?